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(Black PR Wire) JACKSONVILLE, FL — Edward Waters University (EWU), Florida’s first private independent institution of higher learning and its first Historically Black College and University (HBCU), has recorded its highest fall enrollment in over two decades, extending a historic period of institutional growth.
Following the close of fall registration on Friday, August 14, 2026, EWU’s Fall 2026 enrollment stands at 1,281 students, a 5.4% increase over Fall 2025 and a 37.4% increase since Fall 2019, when the institution enrolled 932 students. It is the largest student body the University has enrolled in over two decades, and it brings EWU to within 39 students of the highest enrollment ever recorded in the institution’s 160-year history.
“Edward Waters University is no longer a story about potential. It is a story about performance,” said EWU President and CEO, Dr. A. Zachary Faison, Jr. “In a national higher education environment that has been unforgiving to institutions of our size and type, this University has grown, and grown again. That does not happen by accident, and it does not happen because of any one person. It happens because a community of extraordinary professionals decided that our students were worth an extraordinary effort. And let me say plainly what this number puts within reach: the all-time enrollment record in the 160-year history of this institution. We are 39 students away from it. We intend to break it.”
Growth Against the Current
The achievement is particularly notable given national conditions. American higher education continues to contend with demographic contraction, enrollment volatility, and mounting financial pressure on small private institutions. Against that backdrop, EWU has grown enrollment 37 percent since 2019 while simultaneously recording six consecutive years of operating surpluses and more than tripling its institutional endowment by growing from $2.8 million to $8.6 million an increase of over 200%.
“The market did not get easier. We got better,” Dr. Faison continued. “Our growth has not come at the expense of our financial discipline or our academic integrity. We have grown enrollment, grown the endowment, balanced the budget every single year, and last December completed a full decennial reaffirmation of accreditation by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges with zero recommendations. That combination is rare anywhere in American higher education.”
Record New & Graduate Student Enrollmen
Fall 2026 brought 674 new students to the University, an increase of 90 students, or 15.4%, over the prior year. First-time-in-college freshmen numbered 287, an increase of 7.5%.
Transfer enrollment surged, with 209 transfer students enrolling, an increase of 34.8 % over the prior year and evidence of EWU’s growing appeal to students seeking to complete their degrees at an institution known for personalized support and demonstrated outcomes. New graduate enrollment reached 119 students, an increase of 14.4 % over Fall 2025.
The University received more than 13,000 applications for the 2026–2027 academic year, continuing a multi-year trajectory of expanding national interest.
Since launching its inaugural graduate degree programs in 2021, EWU has grown total graduate enrollment to 149 students an 12% increase over last year across master’s programs in Cybersecurity, Business Administration, Education Policy & Advocacy, and Public Administration.
“This outcome belongs to a team that refused to let a single student fall through the cracks,” said Mr. Kendrick T. Dunklin, Vice President for Enrollment Management and Strategic Matriculant Services. “Our Admissions, Financial Aid, Student Accounts, and Registrar staffs worked calls, emails, and text messages every single day through the close of registration, and they did it in close partnership with Academic Affairs, Student Success, Athletics, our Band and Choir programs, and colleagues across this campus. When a student ran into a barrier, somebody here picked up the phone and worked it until it was solved. That is what produced this number, and I could not be prouder of this team.”
New Academic Offerings
The Fall 2026 semester also marks the launch of a new dual-degree partnership between Edward Waters University and Payne Theological Seminary, offering a combined Master of Divinity and Master of Business Administration in a fully online, three-year format designed for working leaders. Students enrolled in the inaugural cohort this fall.
“This partnership joins two historic African Methodist Episcopal Church institutional legacies in service of a single transformative outcome,” said Dr. Faison. “We are preparing clergy and lay leaders who possess both theological depth and executive business acumen. There is nothing else quite like it, and it belongs at Edward Waters.”
The Team Behind the Number
Dr. Faison attributed the outcome to the University’s cross-institutional Strategic Enrollment and Retention Team (S.E.R.T.).
“Under the leadership of Mr. Kendrick Dunklin, Vice President for Enrollment Management and Strategic Matriculant Services, the S.E.R.T. team worked hand-in-hand with the Offices of Admissions, Financial Aid, Student Accounts, and the Registrar, in close partnership with Academic Affairs, University College, Student Success, and Athletics,” Dr. Faison said. “What makes this accomplishment meaningful is that it was achieved across traditional institutional silos. Nobody protected their territory. Everybody protected our students.”
The enrollment outcome also reflects continued progress in student retention and persistence, with the University retaining 82.9 percent of students eligible to return from spring 2026 to fall 2026.
Academic Profile of the Entering Class
The entering EWU Class of 2030 carries an average grade point average of 3.0, representing 25 states and 8 countries. The University also welcomed the eighth consecutive cohort of the EWU Honors Program, the “Theta Cohort,” whose members earned an average high school grade point average of 4.10.
Looking Forward
“We are growing because students and families are choosing us,” Dr. Faison said. “Every number in this release represents a young person who decided that this institution, founded in 1866 by and for the formerly enslaved, was where their future would begin. That is a trust we do not take lightly, and it is one we intend to keep earning.”
About Edward Waters University
Edward Waters University (EWU), accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC) and a member of the United Negro College Fund (UNCF), is a private, historically Black, urban institution of higher education, which offers a liberal arts education with a strong emphasis on the Christian principles of high moral and spiritual values. EWU was established in 1866 and is an African Methodist Episcopal Church-related institution of learning. It is the first private and independent institution of higher education in the State of Florida.
Media Contact: Office of Institutional Advancement, Development, Marketing and Communications Edward Waters University 1658 Kings Road, Jacksonville, FL 32209 (904) 470-8000
Source: Edward Waters University (EWU)